Norsat International Inc. (“Norsat” or “the Company”) (TSX: NII and OTC BB: NSATF), a leading provider of innovative communication solutions that enable the transmission of data, audio and video for challenging applications and environments, today reported financial results for the fourth quarter and full year ended December 31, 2012.
Norsat serves global customers primarily through three business units: Sinclair Technologies, Satellite Solutions and Microwave Products. All financial results are reported in U.S. dollars and have been prepared in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards (“IFRS”), unless otherwise stated.
We posted EBITDA of $4.8 million in 2012, a record in Norsat’s recent history,” said Dr. Amiee Chan, Norsat’s President and CEO.
“We finished the 2012 year strongly with all three of our business segments achieving solid revenue performance despite challenging business conditions”.
“Coming into the year, we anticipated that reduced U.S. military spending and general weakness in the global economy would put pressure on our business. In response, we continued to diversify our products and end markets, with an increased focus on commercial, resource, transportation and public safety segments. We are pleased with the progress we made in achieving these objectives.”
“Our Sinclair division continued to perform above expectations in both the fourth quarter and on a full-year basis as we met strong demand for a full range of our antenna and RF conditioning products. Our Microwave Products segment also posted gains during both periods, reflecting increased demand for our products,” said Dr. Chan.
“While the slowdown in US military spending impacted revenues from our Satellite Solutions segment on a full-year basis, our diversification strategies proved effective and by the fourth quarter we began to see revenue gains as we continued to expand beyond our traditional markets.”
“Combined, revenues from our three segments grew by 12 percent in both the fourth quarter and the 12 months of 2012.”
“I’m pleased to report we also maintained strict cost discipline across our operations, even while growing our revenues. This, in turn, supported strong EBITDA performance, with fourth quarter EBITDA climbing 38% on the combination of higher revenues and lower expenses, and full-year EBITDA increasing by 14 percent.”
“Overall we are pleased with the progress made in 2012 and, particularly with our success in diversifying our business. Going forward, we will continue expanding both our product mix and end-markets to reduce our reliance on any one customer or market,” added Dr. Chan. “As an example, the recent launch of our new machine-to-machine (“M2M”) satellite product line for the Oil & Gas industry and the new GLOBETrekker 2.0 multi-band fly-away satellite terminal both present new opportunities for us going forward.”
Read the entire report here.